Venezuela’s Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo is deny­ing US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s claim that the US mil­i­tary de­stroyed a Venezue­lan ves­sel with drugs that could have been on the way to Trinidad. And he has al­so launched an­oth­er at­tack on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, la­belling her a “drunk” leader.

That’s how Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der yes­ter­day de­scribed Venezue­lan Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo’s re­port­ed de­scrip­tion of T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a “drunk”.

A new ini­tia­tive to height­en se­cu­ri­ty forces’ pres­ence in cer­tain ar­eas will in­volve tar­get­ing the erad­i­ca­tion of mem­bers of a now-des­ig­nat­ed ter­ror­ist group in those ar­eas in the first phase.

“Mum­my, I love you,” were the last words 21-year-old Nao­mi Ram­nar­ine said to her moth­er be­fore leav­ing her Rio Claro home with her boyfriend yes­ter­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les have con­grat­u­lat­ed Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness on his third con­sec­u­tive term fol­low­ing his par­ty’s elec­tion vic­to­ry yes­ter­day.

Chair­woman of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny, Nyree Al­fon­so, has con­firmed that the $1 mil­lion promised by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to fam­i­lies of four divers and one sur­vivor in the 2022 Paria div­ing tragedy has not been paid.

The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) has dis­con­tin­ued a case against a man from Biche, ac­cused of rap­ing his neigh­bour, af­ter DNA ev­i­dence cleared him of the crime. 

Mem­bers of the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion have now been paid af­ter con­cerns were raised over salary de­lays.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has as­sured a group of for­mer Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers (SRPs) that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is work­ing to pay them their court-or­dered salary ar­rears af­ter they were ab­sorbed in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) al­most two decades ago.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has raised con­cerns over com­ments by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro sup­port­ing a US op­er­a­tion in the South­ern Caribbean that tar­get­ed a Venezue­lan ves­sel.

The na­tion’s crime fight­ing thrust will soon be boost­ed by the im­ple­men­ta­tion of mo­bile po­lice units which will house both po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers.

Farm­ers in Co­r­i­al, Princes Town, woke up yes­ter­day morn­ing to see dozens of co­conut trees butchered, nuts scat­tered, crops up­root­ed, and tools stolen, as thieves went on what res­i­dents de­scribed as a night-long ram­page.